Flight grounded after terrorist scare

AN EXCEL Airways flight destined for Manchester was grounded at Larnaca Airport on Sunday night after passengers suspected that two of the men on board were terrorists.
Flight XL 2143 had been due to take off from Larnaca Airport at 11.40pm on Sunday but instead the plane was grounded and the 228 British passengers were taken to a hotel in Nicosia for the night.

Police and airport officials checked the aircraft overnight but found nothing wrong and decided the plane was not in any danger.

The drama began when one of the two men spent a long time in the toilet, prompting an uproar from the passengers. The plane was lining itself up for takeoff when the pilot decided at the last moment not to take off on hearing the commotion in the cabin.
One passenger told reporters, “All I saw was a couple of Arab looking gents with white skullcaps. What became suspicious is one went to the toilet and went for a long time. He was in the loo for about 10 minutes.”

As a result, the pilot said he would not take off with the two men, who were of Pakistani origin, on board. Cypriot police took the two men in for questioning. Yesterday, Deputy Chief of Police in Larnaca Andreas Georgiou said both men had been cleared of suspicion.

“The pilot of the plane refused to transport those two passengers and so the police were notified and measures taken to ensure the safety of the passengers. Nothing has been found that is suspicious against them. Our target remains the same and that is to ensure the safety of the passengers, especially when allegations of this kind are made,” Georgiou said.

The passengers eventually left from Larnaca yesterday afternoon, while the two Pakistani men will travel to England on a different flight.

Excel Airways is one of the UK’s major charter passenger airlines and provides mainly short-haul services to European and Middle Eastern leisure destinations from its three bases of London Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow. The airline operates an all Boeing fleet and regularly flies to Cyprus.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.